Chapter 9: The Feeling Begins

1.

Quarian boots hit the ground, scattered into cover, shuffled against the white granite that jutted out everyone on Freedom's Progress. Their shuttle hovered overhead just long enough to kick dust and slivers of rock everywhere, and then the quarians were alone. Six people, a barely present breeze, two moons casting square shadows over everything, and an empty colony.

"Perimeter secure."

"Confirmed: perimeter secure. No movement."

"Readying combat drone. Primed to deploy."

Silence.

"I repeat: primed to deploy."

Everyone turned to face the unofficial team leader, a quarian woman in a black and purple evo-suit. She was punching commands into her omni-tool and then, yes, everyone, she could see them staring at her. All she was doing was checking for heat signatures in case any colonists were still around. The last thing they'd want to see would be aliens with guns and floating death-orbs after…well, after whatever had happened here.

Tali'Zorah vas Neema sighed and closed her omni-tool. "Yes, deploy it. There doesn't seem to be anyone around that we could spook."

"I'm plenty spooked," said Limma'Shon. "How many people are supposed to live here?"

"Nearly one million," said Zanni'Yeel. "Small for a colony but…"

"But a lot of people to just go missing like they have," Limma said. "I know. That was my point."

"We'll be fine," Zeem'Garea said.

"So put your gun away," Har'Ronar said.

"We'll be fine because I'm not putting my gun away," Zeem said.

Tali saw the only other quarian to not have spoken, Prazza'Jis, stand up from his cover and slot his gun onto his back. Then he was coming her way, and because every quarian woman had evolved to dread it when Prazza tried to talk to them, Tali crossed her arms.

"Maybe some discipline in the ranks is called for," Prazza said.

"We're not soldiers, Prazza," Tali said. She pushed past him. "Everyone stay on guard, but keep your fingers away from your triggers, please. If we do run into a colonist, the last thing we want is to accidentally hurt them."

"What if we run into something that isn't a colonist?" Limma said.

"Then Zeem has his gun," Tali said. "Isn't that what he was just saying?"

"I wasn't being funny," Zeem said.

And now the self butt-kicking over taking researchers and tech specialists instead of asking Kal'Reeger for a favour was to commence. Keelah, how in the world did Shepard manage this? And there went Prazza, grabbing onto Zeem's shoulder and hoisting him onto his feet, and for no good reason the bosh'tet was getting visor-to-visor with the other quarian and all Tali could think of was how even krogan children (sorry Wrex, but you'd know what I mean) wouldn't be so abrasive if they had something that needed doing.

"Prazza, don't be an idiot," Tali said.

"All I was going to tell him was that arrogance will get him killed," Prazza said, not even turning to face Tali.

"Being thick-headed is a big risk too," Zeem said.

"Oh for the love of—" Urge to headbutt something growing—thanks, Wrex. If only that was a solution for everything. Unfortunately, the only other thing Tali could think to do was to pull out her omni-tool again and fire up her ever-dependable combat drone, Chatika vas Paus, and send it right between the space formed by Prazza and Zeem's visors.

"Limma, is your combat drone still ready to deploy?" Tali said.

"Um, yes, still ready," Limma said.

"Then do it." Tali started walking away from the landing zone—finally, by the Ancestors that should've only taken thirty seconds to do at most—and as Limma's combat drone joined Chatika in the air, Tali tapped Zanni and Har on the shoulders to thank them for being nice enough to stay quiet. "If anyone else is ready to actually do what we came here for, then feel free to follow me."

"I think they want to fight with each other more," Har said.

"Keelah I was just thanking you for behaving," Tali said.

And then Chakita and Limma's combat drone sprinted past their heads and darted for one of the nearest buildings—a rounded white bungalow with wrap-around windows, like every other building on the planet—and…and then they disappeared around the building's furthest corner.

"Uh-oh," Zanni said.

The explosion that followed made everyone else say things that were a lot stronger than "Uh-oh."

Guns drawn and omni-tools at the ready, the quarians filled behind Tali and Zeem as they took point. The shuffled their way towards the corner where the combat drones had disappeared, which getting closer they could see it lead to a little walkway that looked over a massive drop into the quarry below the colony.

"Line up," Tali said.

"Wait for me to get beside you," Prazza said.

"How about you don't step on my foot and just stay where you are?" Limma said.

"Can everyone just follow an order, please?" Tali said.

Luckily, everyone shut up.

Tali poked her head around the corner and saw…Chakita! She was still flickering and hovering, so only Limma's combat drone had been taken out. That was good; taking out a combat drone wasn't anything special, but if whatever had exploded could only take one combat drone out, that meant it probably wasn't super dangerous from the perspective of a six-person team. Tali motioned for everyone to follow her around the bend and…

..and then she stopped as her foot knocked into something hard and metallic. She jumped back slightly, despite herself, and trained her shotgun down at the floor.

Even buried under the glass and circuitry of her mask, she could feel her eyes grow wide.

"Keelah…" she said. As she felt the others gather around her, she could sense the air leaving the colony like a hole had been poked in the atmosphere.

It was a geth recon drones, it's curved insectoid body broken in two and leaking out white fluid. The other quarians had backed off, as if something demonic was going to reach out from the carcass and start consuming them from the inside out.

"No wonder Veetor's missing," Zanni said.

Yes...this might definitely explain a few things…

2.

The first time Tali'Zorah vas Neema ever met Veetor, it had been…Keelah, it hadn't been long after she'd returned to the Rayya. Every important date in her life could be indexed by how far away she had been from joining Shepard or how long it'd been since she left, it seemed, and…well that should be expected, shouldn't it? They'd all saved the galaxy—or, at least, they'd been alongside Shepard as she did the impossible—and it was hard for your life to ever be that exciting again.

Exciting and horrifying. So much had to be suppressed whenever she shared her stories, especially because so much of it involved the geth. There were times she found herself drawing strength from the knowledge that she was sanitizing things, like she was placing herself between her people and another nightmare involving their own creations, and…it was silly, of course it was silly. But her whole experience with Shepard meant she was alone with the oldest ships in the Flotilla: they were the only ones still around who had engaged the geth in open combat. And that meant the only person that could tell her people about husks or Juggernaut platforms or Reaper worship was her. It made you feel almost mythic; it made you feel bigger than you really were.

And it was also exhausting. And invasive, because the questions never ended, so you never got to stop feeling almost mythic. Only four people in the Flotilla seemed to avoid asking Tali these questions at all costs, at least after it became hard for them to ignore just how tiring it became—mythic feeling or not. The first was Father, bless his heart, and Auntie Raan too, who both kept the Admiralty Board from interrogating her after she'd returned from her Pilgrimage. Captain Kar'Danna offered to put a gag-order on the whole ordeal, which was appreciated even if Tali felt it was her duty to decline. And then there was Veetor.

She had said her goodbyes to the crew of the Normandy, thanked Shepard for seeing past the prejudices that so much of the galaxy held of the quarians, returned to the Rayya, and then after a debrief and quarantine period that lasted well into eternity, Tali had seen him in the communal dining area in a corner, all to himself, doing his very best to avoid meeting anyone else's gaze as different working shifts moved in and out of lunch period.

It was hard for Tali to not think of her own childhood and all those times she'd tried to stay back from the crowd, just in case someone saw "the Admiral's daughter" and thought they needed to speak to him through her.

She'd kept an eye on Veetor'Nara vas Rayya from that point onward and, after finding out from Father that he was next up for a Pilgrimage, she saw just how much the influx of people trying to talk to him, advise him, steer him, etc etc was getting to him. He'd barely interacted with much of the rest of the ship outside of his immediate family leading up to that point (and in a society where you had to be aware of other people at all times—in case someone was hurt or a hull had been breached—that made him stand out more than any rebel or troublemaker could ever dream of); now though, he didn't have a choice, people were going to try to talk to him no matter what.

Tali had sent Veetor a private message recommending a quiet spot on the Rayya, and she also put forward an offer to answer any questions he might have face-to-face, no large crowds, if he was looking for any advice before heading out. She was Tali'Zorah vas Neema—a full-fledged member of a brand-new ship and proud member of its crew—by the time he responded with a simple Yes Please.

"I um…I don't know…I'm not sure if I can do this," Veetor had said. The quiet spot was a make-shift observation deck that looked out at the flaring engines of the Rayya. Tali had always hated the place because it meant you'd be the first person to see the engines fail, and as far as she could tell, that reason—or something similar to it—was why almost nobody else on the ship ever went up there either.

In retrospect, not the best place to have a one-on-one conversation with someone suffering from anxiety.

"Um, we can…go somewhere different, if you want," Tali said. "This is…maybe quiet for all the wrong reasons."

"Oh, no! No it's…no, this is…" Veetor looked out the window at the flaring engines. "It's not perfect, but…I meant, I'm not sure I can go on my Pilgrimage. At all, um, I mean. I don't…it's probably not even worth the effort."

He was fidgeting. It almost made Tali want to fidget.

"Oh…no, Veetor, I…a Pilgrimage is a big thing, yes, but they're usually not overly exciting. We wouldn't send out people out if this tradition was dangerous."

"Dangerous for other people, maybe," Veetor said. "For me though…it's different. Lots of things seem dangerous to me. I don't know who to trust."

"You're not alone out there. We can do so many things to make sure you're not completely outside your element, wherever you go."

"It's…it's different for me. Alone is fine. I can trust alone."

The conversation had died after that point, but Tali kept thinking about it long afterwards. And then word reached the Flotilla that Shepard had been…missing, and presumed dead, and then Captain Anderson confirmed for her that the Alliance had stopped looking for a body, and…then it was hard not to think about humanity, after that. Tali had only encountered a few humans before Shepard—each one on the Citadel, while she was being chased by Fist's thugs—but Shepard was the only one that seemed to think of her as an inherently worthwhile person to have around. Everyone else, even that Ambassador Udina, was more than willing to write her off like all other quarians…but Shepard had trusted her enough to give her a home, a family, and a chance to make things right in the galaxy. Tali could trust Shepard, and she could trust the many humans that she'd gotten to know and who got to know her in turn, too.

That gave Tali an idea.

"Veetor," Tali had said, meeting with the younger quarian in his domicile on the Rayya. "How much do you know about human colonies?"

The lights under Veetor's visor blinked. "I-I…I don't know much. Why? What should I know? Why are you asking?"

"I've still been thinking about what you told me, about being alone. I don't exactly think that being alone is something you can do on a Pilgrimage, not without getting seriously hurt at least. But a lot of the colonies that humanity is establishing are very sparsely populated. If you went to one of them for you Pilgrimage, you would probably be left to yourself most of the time. There'd still be others around to help if you needed it, but…" She wasn't quite sure how to finish that sentence so, instead, she just watched Veetor's mask, hoping to see some of the few signs quarians gave off through their eyes that they were excited about something.

She couldn't tell much from his eyes, but Veetor did start bouncing on his feet.

"Um…h-how sparse?" he said.

"I don't know, not off the top of my head," Tali said. "But most of the colonies outside of Alliance space are very empty. Shepard explained it to me once—it's something about giving up Alliance funds for more control over their own rules. Something like that. The idea doesn't attract much in the way of settlers, apparently."

Veetor stopped bouncing, then started up again. "Would…would they take me? Even though I'm a quarian?"

"I'm not sure, but it's worth asking," Tali said. "I don't know if humans have been around long enough to have the same prejudices about us as other species," no, no they had, Tali knew they had and there wasn't any point in lying about that, "but…I think these are people trying to make their own lives, away from expectations and everything like that. It sounds like something you might be looking for…if, um, that's what you are actually looking for, I mean."

Veetor stopped bouncing again, and this time Tali could tell from his eyes that he was letting himself get lost in thought. Eventually, he started bouncing again.

"I-I'd like that. I think I'd like that. I-if you knew how to help me make that happen, I'd, um, I'd really think about going somewhere like that."

"Good, yes, I can help with that, I think." Tali stood up and patted Veetor on his shoulder. He didn't flinch, which she'd expected him to for half a second there, but he did stop bouncing so she'd have a better shot at his shoulder. Tali nodded in thanks.

"I don't um…I don't know which one I'll pick yet. But thanks. I-I think this will help."

"I'm glad Veetor—I'm really glad to hear that."

Veetor's eyes blinked and Tali thought some swelling panic was about to make him change his mind, but then she saw him cast his eyes downwards.

"Oh, um, I'm…sorry to hear about your friend," he said.

Shepard. He meant Shepard. A lot of people had been asking about her, too. It wasn't hard to notice, for most, that a famous galactic Spectre had invited a quarian aboard. A lot of people were a lot more interested in humanity after hearing from Tali, and she could hardly blame them.

Veetor seemed to be one of only a select few that remembered her and Shepard were friends, first and foremost.

"Thank you, Veetor," Tali said. "I really appreciate that."

And that had been that. Veetor eventually choose Freedom's Progress and, with some help from Tali and from Councilor Anderson (not Captain anymore; it was hard for Tali to get the ranks right, since "Captain" meant something so very much more in quarian society than it did in human society), he was off to a cold, sterile, quiet, peaceful, tiny human colony out in the Terminus System. And Tali had to remind herself that she hadn't forgotten it was in the Terminus Systems when Veetor suggested it, or that most of the colonies she'd mentioned were also in the Terminus System, because that wasn't what concerned Veetor. She had to remind herself that quiet and a small, unremarkable population was what Veetor wanted, and that it wasn't inevitably that the colony would go dark and all weekly communications would just suddenly stop like they had done. It wasn't inevitable that Veetor would disappear like he had.

Tali hadn't known that human colonies were disappearing.

She reminded herself of that a lot, but…it mostly didn't stick. Tali had spent the last few weeks unable to tear her eyes away from her omni-tool, in case a message finally found its way to the Flotilla. Even after the extranet finally confirmed that the colony was gone, just like all the others, Tali still held out hope that Veetor managed to hide somewhere and that he'd be able to send out a message or something, anything, telling the Flotilla that he needed a pick-up.

And, of course, that message never came. So be it, then. If the expectations of being the Admiral's daughter were going to follow her around like a diseased varren, then she was going to act like she was the Admiral's daughter.

She'd found her father, Admiral Rael'Zorah, on his specialty laboratory ship the Alarei—it wasn't technically his home ship but, with the amount of time he spent there, it might as well have been his home. It was where he immediately retreated to after Tali's Pilgrimage ceremony, alongside his hand-picked staff that always treated Tali like family whenever Father was around and treated her like a pest when he was away, and it's where he vid-called in for all his Admiralty Board meetings too, according to Auntie Raan. He had to clear Tali through security in order for her to actually get on the ship, and even that was as impersonal as possible: everything was networked together and could be micromanaged from the keypad of his omni-tool.

She'd found him standing behind a large slab filled with bits and pieces of a geth combat platform. He was shaking his head, and his eyes looked sad.

"Father?" Tali had said.

His head snapped up and his hand knocked over the combat platform's leg.

"Keelah—Tali, how did you…?" She watched Father's eyes blink. "Right, apologies, Tali. I forgot…how long have you been here?"

"I just got aboard," she said. "I came straight here."

"It's good to see you," Father said. "What do you need?"

"I didn't say I needed a favour, Father. I just said I needed to talk."

"That sounded like you were in need of a favour, to my ears anyways." Father rounded the other side of the table and placed a hand on Tali's shoulder. "Am I wrong?"

"Yes, Father, you are." She thought about brushing his hand off but, no, no too many times she'd felt close to dying far away from the Flotilla and from everything she'd known. She wasn't going to gamble with the possibility that the last thing Father would ever feel from her was cold indignation. She paused, placed her hand over Father's, then sighed. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm taking a small team to look for Veetor. We'll be leaving in the morning, assuming we can get everything we need from storage by then."

"Veetor?" Father quickly dropped his hand. "You know where he is?"

"We're looking for him. If we knew where he is, we'd just be wasting out time."

Father paused, then turned back to his table. "You might be doing that anyways. Why are you doing this? I feel for the young man, I do, but we have so much to worry about already. If he's to come home, he'll come home. The rest is something we cannot control."

"We can control whether someone is out looking for him," Tali said. "And I owe him that much: I put the idea in his head, I'm responsible for him being out there."

"That wasn't your doing. Every quarian knows the risks."

"Random abduction isn't a risk that any of us agreed to! And I at least know where he might have been taken from! I don't even know why we're…" arguing about this. She was going to say she didn't know why they were arguing about this. But she knew. She knew well in advance that they'd argue, they just would, because that's always what the Admiral and his daughter seemed to do. He was testing her, that always seemed to be it; so whatever Tali said, she had to be challenged on it. Otherwise how would Tali'Zorah lead the Flotilla of the future? Mmph, how indeed.

So Tali simply said: "We can't afford to leave people behind, Father. The Fleet needs everyone—even the people that stand out the most."

Father put his arms behind his back, straightened his posture, took on the full figure of an Admiral. "And are you looking for Veetor because you believe this is something Shepard would have done?"

"It's what I would do," Tali said. "Isn't that enough?"

Tali averted her eyes, stared at the hanging boxes and black mesh along the ceiling. She didn't want to try to read Father's face. She was fine not knowing.

Eventually, Father sighed.

"You need me to sign off on this. I will do that."

"No, I don't," Tali said. "Auntie Raan already approved it. My team is all ready to go. I…came here to tell you I'm leaving in person."

"Oh." Again, Tali kept her gaze on the ceiling.

"I'll keep in touch, Father. And hopefully I'm not gone long."

"Yes, please do," Father said. "Both those things, I mean."

A brief pause, wondering what next? Wondering if people unrelated to anyone on the Admiralty board had this problem or if it was just her? Tali was the one that had to initiate the hug, just like always. Just like always, she was the one that had to pull away too. She just barely kept herself from shaking her head at the whole absurdity of it all.

"Do me one favour while you're gone, Tali," Father said. Tali stopped, nodded. "If you find any geth parts…please send them to me. On this ship. They'll be useful, if you trust me."

Tali couldn't keep her eyes averted this time. This time, she had to show her father what she was thinking.

"I trust you," she had said.

And now here she was, on Freedom's Progress, and there was a piece of a geth spy drone laying at her feet.

Tali booted up the disruptor ammo program on her omni-tool, saw her shotgun glow blue for the briefest of seconds, and motioned for her team to continue moving through the colony.

3.

There had been complete silence for at least a full five minutes, which Tali hadn't suspected. The team had stopped at another building (judging from the inside, this one was a make-shift school, and for particularly young kids at that) and, after signaling to everyone to take up position, they stayed glued to the wall, just watching as a few toys that had been left outside rolled back and forth in the breeze. Someone was going to say something then, surely. Someone would.

Tali knew someone on her team was going to ask about the geth, even if she wasn't sure which person it would be. And she knew that all the bickering and looks and bodily language that said, yes, we agreed to come on this mission, but only because something like this looks good on our Civic Records, all of that, had disappeared for the exact same reason. They might not have fully bought into Tali's leadership before but they would now, because now? Now there were geth on Freedom's Progress, and it was just her and the oldest ships in the Flotilla, alone against history. And people knew that.

"Are…are they as hard to kill as people have said?" It was Zanni. She'd shuffled closer to Tali and in as quiet a voice as she could manage over the suit's external speakers, she'd finally asked something close to what Tali had expected. And looking over her shoulder, Tali could tell that everyone else on her team was listening like one of their Ancestors were speaking from beyond the Veil.

The thing was that Tali didn't know what to say, not really. The geth had been this borderline demonic force; but the first time she'd ever come into contact with them, it had just been a single patrol, no unit more dangerous than a Destroyer platform. And even then, Tali and her friend (I'm sorry Keenah, I'm so sorry I couldn't save you) focused on just one platform, a single platform. Two quarians, the element of surprise…the real danger that day had been the mercenary's hired by Saren to kill them both, not the geth.

But when Commander Shepard had been sent to investigate a distress signal that turned out to be a geth trap, that had been when she'd encountered the real geth. The true geth. The power of a network of VI programs constantly communicating with one another, feeding one another information that other platforms couldn't see, adjusting their tactics and weapons and placement and calling in reinforcement after reinforcement until Tali's shotgun had overheated and she knew, she knew but nobody else did, that not a single geth had been truly killed that day—that they'd only uploaded to a different platform in some unseen dropship and should they think that killing Shepard was worth it, that new platform would drop on their heads and the cycle would begin again.

That was the geth. And Tali thought Shepard was an idiot for thinking she could beat them back, tank or no tank. She still thought Shepard was an idiot, even after every geth platform had been deactivated and the dropship fled the planet.

She'd gone nearly a week without talking to anyone after that, even after the nightmares finally stopped. Dr. Chakwas, the Normandy's medical officer, was as sympathetic a person as they came, but Tali doubted she could understand. Dr. Chakwas had never been raised to know about her own species mistakes, and just how hauntingly dangerous those mistakes were.

"Tali?" Zanni said again. "Tali…are they really that hard to kill?"

Tali shook her head, let herself be pulled back into the present moment, back to the make-shift school. What could she say? The geth didn't seem so invincible now, sure, but it had taken many months and a lot of combat experience for her to let herself realize the geth weren't unstoppable. There wasn't much you could say to wash away three hundred years of stories and scars.

All Tali could think to say was: "We need to be careful. If there are dropships around the colony, then we have to pull out." She looked at her team, each and every one of them as stiff and unmoving as they had been since the recon drone was found. "If it's just a small team, then we'll be fine."

"Fine as in we'll survive? Or fine as in we can take them?" Har said.

"The second one. We'll pull out before we're in any real danger."

"Assuming we get the chance," Limma said.

"Let's just go," Prazza said. He stared at Tali, not moving a muscle otherwise. "Lead the way."

Tali sighed and pulled away from the wall. The rest of the quarians followed, all in an awkward crouch like they'd turn invisible if their knees were bent. There were no clouds in the sky and so the light reflecting off the planet's two moons was brighter than any flashlight or Pathfinder Beacon could manage. Unless the blocks of granite were in the way, unfortunately; the shadows were deep and dark and big enough that anyone or anything could be hiding in them. Some types of geth would hide in shadows, like the hopper platforms that started appearing wherever Shepard and the rest of the Normandy crew ended up. Tali wasn't sure what was worse: the idea that the geth had created these platforms long before Shepard became a threat, or if they'd been produced quickly, like immediately after Saren declared Shepard a threat to his and Sovereign's plans. Independently evolving geth or geth that could change their entire warfare suits in a moment's notice: either way, the quarians were falling further and further behind their creations.

"Wait, I thought I heard something." It was Prazza. Everyone stopped and trained their guns up to the sky—even Tali—as though that was the most likely place for a geth to be stalking them.

"I didn't hear anything," Zeem said.

"That's why I said I thought I heard something," Prazza said. "Why is everyone on each other's case today?"

"We're only on your case Prazza von Bosh'tet," Har said.

"I do not have a weak bladder!"

"Everyone shut it. We're dealing with the geth here for Christ's sake."

Five pairs of eyes blinked at her. "Who's 'Christ'?" Limma said.

"It's a human saying. Prazza, which direction did—"

"She's trying to remember what Shepard taught her," Har said.

"Are five quarians good enough to replace a human?" Zanni said.

"A regular human, maybe," Har said. "Not Shepard though."

"One human can't do all the things they say she did, it's not possible," Prazza said. "Besides, they never had to fight the number of geth that we did when Rannoch was being atta—"

Another recon drone slowly flew past them. Very slowly, like maybe it was taking video of them as it passed overhead. Even though everyone's weapons were raised to the sky, nobody fired—nobody tried to get a bead on the thing. It carried on with its flightpath and disappeared into a small space formed by two massive blocks of granite, just overlooking the building next to the make-shift school.

"What the Christ?" Limma said. Prazza smacked her on the side of her head and stared her down just long enough for Tali to notice and pull Prazza away by his shoulder.

"Two teams," Tali said. "One will try to climb up the roof, the other goes into the building."

"I'll go up the roof," Prazza said, staring back at Tali. "I'm fine with that."

"I'm good to go wherever Prazza isn't," Har said.

"Seconded," Zanni said.

"You already know my answer," Limma said.

"I hope the geth greased the ladder," Zeem said.

"Admiral Raan will hear about this," Prazza said.

"Everyone shut up before we tell every platform we're here," Tali said.

They all shut up. Mention the geth just once, it seemed, and suddenly nobody challenged your leadership.

"Prazza and I will go to the roof," Tali said. "The rest of you will go through the building, then."

"Why only two of us?" Prazza said.

"Because I'm not getting shot in the back on your account," Tali said.

Tali didn't wait to see if Prazza was following her. Shotgun raised out front, she made her way to the ladder leading to the roof of the building and watched as the rest of the quarians took up positions near the front door. A nod from Limma and then four quarian bodies ducked inside. No shots so far, so that was a good sign.

Finally, Tali checked to see if Prazza was next to her. He was, and he did the bare minimum to acknowledge her existence. "I'll go up first," she said.

"Suit yourself," Prazza said.

Tali climbed the ladder and it was funny how your brain chemicals could slow down time the way they did. With all the cybernetics that quarians had implanted on themselves, you would've thought that some of them might be dedicated to regulated the endocrine system but, for the most part, quarian soldiers and scientists and important fleet personnel seemed to think that evolution had done what it needed to do to get quarian adrenaline to its most effective state. Tali was seeing it for herself, as her head crested the top of the building and the reflective light from the moon briefly spat dots and a rainbow aura at her eyes. A few blinks that took an eternity to complete their cycle knocked the visual fuzz away and finally Tali could see the black-armoured geth standing in front of her, hand stretched outwards, its head and its spotlight looking down at her.

Her grip faltered on the ladder and down she came on Prazza. Through the sound of her own laboured breathing she heard something speak in a robotic, clicking noise.

"Creator," it said.

4.

The quarians were falling behind the geth…Keelah, as if the geth were a sin that the quarians had to carry with them until the end of time. Everybody thought that; it was part of why nobody trusted the quarians, why nobody would both to put one on their crew or create a trade agreement between the Flotilla and their planet or anything like that. Anything that would let the quarians rejoin galactic society.

Even some of Shepard's crew had thought that, at least in the beginning.

She remembered…it hadn't been all that long after their first encounter with the geth, and while all the human crewmembers and Wrex seemed fine about it, her and Garrus Vakarian were walking around the Normandy like the world was slowly disintegrating around them. They hadn't yet picked up Liara T'Soni, so Garrus and Tali were the only members of a species that had been around long enough to know all the stories about the geth and have fully assimilated them—well, they were the only members of a species that had done all that and weren't the krogans, anyways. Wrex was a very unnerving rock—maybe that's partially why the geth slowly lost their demonic edges for Tali, give or take the occasional panic attack.

Now-a-days, all she could focus on was the slim chance of getting her homeworld back and the fact the fact that everyone in the galaxy blamed the quarians for their own predicament, no matter what was said in the quarian's defense. Again, even some of Shepard's crew had those thoughts.

At least Garrus apologized for it, though.

She remembered him walking into the engine room one day—it was after "Engineer Adams" (Tali had always liked that he got called by his profession, since he seemed to like being called that way too) had left, so it'd just be the two of them. That was…noticeable, but so was the fact that Garrus's mandibles were drooping. Tali had never seen a turian look like that before, but then again she hadn't seen many turians outside of very official posts like C-SEC or anti-pirate fleets.

"Tali, uh, I wanted to apologize," Garrus had said, rubbing the nape of his neck. "For what I said in the elevator? That was out of line, I shouldn't've…mmm, yeah."

"Shouldn't have what, Garrus?" Tali had said back.

"Shouldn't've implied that every quarian out there is responsible for the geth. That was…silly of me."

"Silly and wrong?"

"Yeah, both those things. Sorry I'm not…I wasn't sure what I should say here. It was a big leap I made; I sort of thought you might be past speaking to me at this point."

Tali sighed. "It's not like I haven't heard these things before…but still, thank you for apologizing. Most people don't."

"Well…I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from doing it in the first place, but I guess we don't have the technology for that yet."

"A lot of quarians feel the same way as you," Tali said. "If you find a time machine, let us know."

They both chuckled after that. It was…nice. But, still…

"Did you actually believe it?" Tali said. "When you said it?"

Garrus paused, looked at the floor, then returned his eyes to Tali. "No. I mean, I don't think so. You regurgitate a lot of things, especially when you're frustrated. I think you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Doesn't make it right but…I didn't mean to attack you like that."

"You were frustrated?"

"You're not? Your people've been warning us about the geth for years, and even after a Council colony gets attacked, nothing happens. I'm starting to think the people in charge don't care if the rest of us live or die."

"That sort of thought never happens in the Flotilla," Tali said. "The moment it does, people die. If we start losing faith in our leaders, who knows what might happen."

"Even if your leaders are terrible?"

"That's exactly the thing: we're always on guard, and we take action when someone takes a position of authority that we don't think they deserve. We try to make sure it never gets to the point where we might lose faith in our leadership."

Garrus paused, blinked, scratched at the nape of his neck again. "How d'you square that circle? Have faith in your leaders but watch them like they're criminals at the same time—seems like a system that could cause a lot of friction."

Tali shrugged. "It's worked so far. We don't lose ships with all that much frequency." She shrugged again. "Maybe it's just luck on our part, though. It's hard to tell sometimes."

Luck…leadership…Tali guessed she was lucky there were geth on Freedom's Progress, given that nobody was going to respect her leadership otherwise. And she was lucky Prazza's hard head kept her from completely losing consciousness when she…

Keelah had she been unconscious? No, she couldn't have been—she was relieving memories. You couldn't do that when you were unconscious. So she was just dazed a-and lost for a bit and…and where was Prazza? He didn't feel like he was under her anymore.

She quickly got up onto her elbows and, looking up, she expected to see the geth leaping down onto her. But the roof was empty. So was the little garbage disposal area where she'd landed.

"Prazza? Prazza, anyone—is anyone still around? Keelah how long was I out?"

Tali got fully to her feet and checked around the corner of the building. Nobody there—and it didn't look like the building's front door had been forced open either, so the geth she'd seen hadn't gone after the rest of the team, by the looks of it. There…there was only one direction she could go, really. Up the ladder again, after the geth drone they'd seen fly overhead…and probably towards the geth that had attac—

Wait had the geth spoken to her? How…how was that possible? A single geth platform barely had the intelligence of a varren; it shouldn't have been able to speak too. This was…this was very wrong, unless they'd evolved even further and had…and had…Tali didn't know. She readied her shotgun instead and took a massive breath and slowly, very slowly, wrapped her fingers around the ladder, planted her foot, and—

A shape leapt down behind her and as she swung her shotgun around to meet it she heard that metallic, clicking voice again say: "Creator, we wish to—"

Her shotgun tore a chunk out of the granite that was behind the geth platform. It let out a high-pitched wail and covered its head. "Creator, please cease hostilities!"

"Stand still you bosh'tet!" Tali pumped her shotgun and readied her omni-tool to fry the geth's shields, but the geth was quicker than she anticipated. Its hand shot out and connected with her wrist and there went her shotgun, skittering across the ground and out into the open space in front of the building. Tali's omni-tool was off now too; it's electric blast missed the geth entirely and that meant Tali had exactly one move left of her to—

Tali dove for her shotgun and so did the geth. They clacked heads together and unfortunately only one of them had the capacity to feel pain.

"Gah! Bosh'tet!"

"Creator we—"

Tali rolled to her feet and sent a kick towards the geth's head and she could feel it, in her kick, she could feel that she managed to shoot her leg out with enough force to knock the geth platform around. And she did: the light in the centre of the geth's head flickered and it's head rocked backwards and there, she had enough room to throw another kick or punch or something to keep the geth on its back-heel, enough to force it back and then…Tali didn't know what just keep kicking until it goes down!

Her second kick wasn't so effective: she'd aimed it at the geth's midsection and after feeling her shin scream at her for being an idiot the geth's arm close around her leg. There wasn't much chance of her yanking it free.

"Creator, we wish to—"

Tali went for the knife taped to her boot—on the leg that the geth was currently holding, unfortunately—and just as she got her fingers on it's handle the geth pulled and sent Tali onto her rear. It let go of her leg at least, and Tali took the opportunity to grab onto the geth's leg and yank. The platform was heavier than she thought it might be but it worked—the geth was on its rear too. Now she had enough time to roll away and try and find her shot gun which wasn't anywhere near her where the hell did it go?

Voices over her shoulder. Quarian voices. She looked and saw her team filing out of the building with their guns drawn. "Start shooting—don't worry about me!"

Without any objection, of course, Prazza opened fire with his assault rifle. Bullets bit into the ground around the geth as it scrambled to its feet and crawled, nearly on all fours, back towards the little garbage disposal area where Tali had first started fighting it. Prazza tried to keep pace but the platform eventually disappeared into the shadows.

"Did I hit it?" Prazza said.

"No—were you aiming for the moon?" Zeem said.

"You almost hit Tali you bosh'tet!" Zanni said.

"She told me to start firing!" Prazza said.

"Everyone on me," Tali said. She bent down and grabbed her shotgun as the rest of the team moved towards her, everyone back-to-back and scanning the granite blocks for any sign of the geth platform. When Limma reached her side, Tali leaned closer and tapped her shoulder with the end of her shotgun. "Any sign of more geth?"

"None," Limma said. "Why did you send Prazza to come get us when the geth was right on top of you?"

"I didn't."

Tali saw Limma whip her head around and call Prazza a "scum-sucking infection with legs" when her shotgun started sparking and glowing hot and, Keelah drop it before it burns through your suit! Everywhere around her Tali could hear and see weapons being tossed onto the ground, everyone swearing at the heat and murmuring nervously about—

"Creators, please listen."

All eyes darted up to the roof of the building and, there again, was the geth platform. It's omni-tool was glowing orange and with the moon over its shoulder, all Tali could see was the glowing light in the centre of its head and the blue glow of the tubes stretching from its back-unit to the base of it's skull.

"Keelah…did that thing just talk?" Limma said.

"Ancestors protect us…" Zanni said.

"How the hell is it…sapient?" Har said. "I-it's just one geth."

"There are currently one-thousand, one-hundred, and eighty-three programs active within this platform," the geth said. The geth said. "Our platform is specifically designed to allow for communication and interaction with organics. We are trying to initiate dialogue now, we hope without further hostility."

"Keelah…"

Tali jabbed her finger in the direction of the geth platform. "We have no reason to trust anything you—"

"Extranet search complete; biometric scan confirmed," the geth said. "We specifically wish to speak to you, Creator-Tali'Zorah. An exchange of data would be mutually beneficial."

C-Creator Tali'Zorah?

"Keelah, it knows Tali," Limma said.

"It wants revenge!" Zanni said.

"We wish to exchange data," the geth said. "Pertaining in particular to the human known as Shepard-Commander."

Tali stared at the geth, but behind her back her fingers were working away at her omni-tool, getting Chakita ready to pounce the moment the geth looked distracted. "Fine," Tali said. "You want to speak to me about Shepard-Commander? Then do it. If you want insight into how she managed to kill so many of you, then I'm happy to go into gory, gory detail."

"She did not attack us until recently," the geth said. "You only fought with her against the Heretics. We wish to know more about how Shepard-Commander was resurrected, why she targeted a geth patrol, and why she thought we would have information on the Old Machines."

Tali's fingers stopped. Recently? A-and Shepard was alive? What…how…her head was spinning, and as heat started to rise from her toes through her body she managed to put enough pieces together to realize, too, that the geth platform had said "Heretics" and "Old Machines" and…and Old Machines, Reapers, that was easy enough to understand but Shepard was alive?

"It's playing tricks on us!" Prazza said. "It thinks Tali's stupid enough to believe that Shepard's alive!"

"We are not playing 'tricks'," the geth said. "We wish to know more about how this her resurrection is possible. If she is still searching for the Old Machines, she does not appear to be gathering allies anymore. This is not an effective strategy."

"It's been following us this entire time! Why is nobody opening fire?"

Har looked at Tali. "I'm with the idiot on this one."

"We did not know anyone else would be on this colony," the geth said. "We altered mission parameters after first contact with our recon drone."

"Why…what do you care about an 'effective strategy'?" Tali said. "Y-you fought with the Reapers, I don't—"

"We are Geth. We oppose the Old Machines. Heretics do not. Shepard-Commander opposed the Old Machines. Cooperation would further mutual goals, however Shepard-Commander is not pursuing an effective retaliatory strategy."

"I-I don't—"

"What in the hell is an Old Machine?" Zeem said.

And then Prazza was diving for his assault rifle and before he even checked to see if it was ready to fire, he pointed it at the geth platform and squeezed the trigger. There was a delay and that gave the geth platform enough time to dive back into cover, but soon an entire thermal clip had been unloaded at the roof of the building and the other quarians were diving for their weapons as well, doing the same until entire chunks of the roof broke apart and snowed debris onto the ground below. Tali unleashed Chakita and went for her own shotgun too, but by the time she had the barrel pointed where the geth platform had been, it was gone and unlikely to be coming back now that the squad had functioning weapons again.

But…Keelah the things it had said…

"I'm calling the shuttle," Prazza said, tapping at his omni-tool. "Talking geth is something I did not sign up for."

"Again, I'm with the idiot," Har said.

"What was it talking about?" Limma said to Tali. "Heretics? Old Machines? What does any of that mean?"

"Who cares!" Prazza said. "It's a talking geth!"

Tali kept staring at the space where the geth platform had been standing and…and Prazza was right, this wasn't something the rest of them had signed up for. "Everyone back to the LZ," she said. "C'mon."

The rest of the team didn't need her permission to start jogging back through the colony, it seemed, and they certainly didn't seem to notice that Tali wasn't moving. Or, everyone except Limma didn't seem to notice. She had jogged about five steps before stopping, turning around, and staring back at Tali.

"I'll be right behind you," Tali said, waving her off. "Just need a second."

Limma hesitated but, eventually, started jogging again.

And that left Tali, alone with the hole-filled shadow of the roof as the orbit of the moon stretched the shade further and further over the colony.

Shepard was alive…it was such a crazy thing to lie about and, besides, geth didn't lie. That wasn't in their programming and nothing about the way their networks worked suggested it would be something they'd be any good at. She should be skeptical sure but…but it was such a weird thing to lie about. If it was trying to prod her emotions then, well, then maybe she could understand lying about it, but what was the point in riling her up when it could have just killed her instead?

And what was this about Heretics?

And Shepard going after the Old Machines—the Reapers—but without allies?

There was…there was so much to process, and the foundation was so shaky to begin with. She'd been told all of this by a geth!

There was one way she could confirm all of this, and…and if nothing else, she might have information that would benefit people who could use all the information they could get.

She brought up her omni-tool, searched for a channel she hadn't used in forever, and as a few memories flitted across her conscious mind—the Citadel, Saren's assassin, a figure in N7 armour charging her way through the alleyway, a kindly face with a deep and authoritative voice—she pressed the last button she needed to press and brought her wrist closer to her suit's external speaker. She glanced around to check to see if the geth platform had returned, and then started speaking.

"Captain Anderson?" Tali said. She shook her head, called herself an idiot. "Or…I'm sorry, Councilor Anderson, apologies I…this is Tali'Zorah vas Neema. I'm…hoping that I'm using this channel properly, but I need to talk to you urgently. Please, um…contact me as soon as you can."

Then she closed her omni-tool and headed back towards her team, stopping only to bend down by the first down geth recon drone they'd encountered and take some of its circuity with her.

Keelah…she was going to have to ask Auntie Raan for a longer leave of absence, wasn't she?

Y'know, it's funny: while there's very obviously some tension between Tali and Prazza in the game (and obviously anyone who's fighting with Tali is just a bad guy; I don't make the rules man that's just the way it is), as far as "stupid" things go, his one "stupid" act was not trusting a bunch of Cerberus operatives. And that's...really not all that stupid.

This is my way of saying that I don't know why he comes off as a jerkass with a few crayons short of a full set but that's just the way he came out as I was writing him. Not my fault; I'm just the clerk, here.

Anyways, hope you all enjoyed the read! I've got no idea what the upload schedule will look like moving forward since I don't have the holidays as an excuse to not do actual work and write fanfiction instead, but hopefully future delays aren't too...egregious.

Two reference-related notes before I shut up:

The bit about Tali's first encounter with the geth comes from Mass Effect: Homeworld's #2, where we also learn about how she came into contact with that precious, precious geth data that kick-started the hunt for Saren in the first game. The name of her friend comes from that issue too.

The title for this chapter comes from the first song on Peter Gabriel's album "Passion," or as it's better known, the "Last Temptation of Christ" soundtrack. Love that movie, love that album, and I love that song - I also wrote out most of this chapter with it playing in the background, so it seemed appropriate to use the song-title as the chapter title as well.

Hope everyone had a good December and that January isn't too shabby either!